Potential party crashers will have a tough time getting into the
pre-parties surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Association
dinner this Saturday.
It’s a Washington tradition for the
uninvited to dress up and slip into the various cocktail receptions
scattered throughout the Hilton Hotel before the dinner begins.
This year, however, organizers of the sold-out event are determined to
keep the crowds at more manageable levels than last year’s gathering,
which was jam-packed to epic proportions.
“We’re just trying to
keep out people who aren’t invited because it’s gotten so crowded,
that’s all,” said Bloomberg’s Ed Chen, the president of the White House
Correspondents’ Association.
One major change is that the
public will not be allowed near the red-carpet area just inside the
Hilton’s revolving doors. Usually that spot has a roped-off space for
onlookers to cheer and photograph celebrity arrivals.
The
change will make it more difficult for people to crash the party while
making it easier for people with invitations to arrive.
In
order to get onto the terrace level, where the red-carpet arrivals take
place, or the downstairs concourse level, where the pre-parties take
place, attendees will need either a dinner ticket or a ticket to one of
the pre-dinner cocktail receptions. Credentialed media covering the
spectacle will also be allowed in.
The association will have
extra staff on hand to make sure people have invitations, and to monitor
crowd flow.
“The only people allowed on the red-carpet level
are event attendees. The people staying in the hotel and the general
public will not be allowed on that level. And everyone covering the red
carpet will be credentialed and let in at a certain time by security,”
said Julie Whiston, executive director of the association.
“We’re
being much tighter so our guests will be more comfortable and we won’t
have the crowding we had last year.”
Last year’s pre-dinner
receptions were so crowded, guests (both invited and crashers) had to
push their way through the hallways and around VIPs.
The
crowds blocked the hallways so badly that several news organizations had
to get their celebrity guests into the dinner by going through the
kitchen.
“We had to go through the kitchen to get inside the
dining room. We had a wand inside there with the Secret Service,” said
CNN spokeswoman Edie Emery of last year’s festivities. “That’s something
you don’t want to put your guests through.”
Part of the
problem was that the outside pool area, where several pre-parties are
usually held, was closed for renovation, forcing all the receptions to
be held downstairs, rather than split between the terrace and concourse
levels. It will be closed again this year as the Hilton continues to
undergo construction.
Officials at the Hilton Hotel did not
respond to a request for comment.
There will be several ways
for people with tickets to get to the downstairs area for this year’s
event. Traditionally, most people go down the escalators, which are so
narrow that only one person can fit and there is usually a swarm of
bodies waiting to get through.
That small area and the fact that there will be check-in lines has
people concerned that even if they hold the proper invites, there will
be a long wait to get to the festivities.
Party planners aren’t
worried, though.
“We worked it all out,” Whiston said. “We’ve
got lots of staff and lots of help.”
In addition to the
escalators, there is a bank of elevators guests can take to get
downstairs.
Another option would be to go into the ballroom
where the dinner is held through the terrace level and exit the ballroom
through the concourse level in order to get to the receptions. There is
an additional staircase off the elevator bank that is usually blocked
off by the rope lines of cheering crowds but should, theoretically, be
open this year.
Chen’s advice to attendees: “Just be patient
and be polite. And we’ll all get through this just fine.”
Demand
for this year’s event was so high that organizers had to turn away some
organizations that wanted additional tickets.
“Requests came
in for 50 more tables than we had,” Chen said. “Both in the size of the
response and the speed of the response for when we put out the notice
saying now is the time to apply for tables, it was the fastest and the
biggest ever.”
Chen, as president of the association, has the
thankless task of helping to decide which organizations get which tables
and how many tickets.
“I’m in a wheelchair now — broken legs,
arm in a sling,” he joked. “You get kind of pretty beat up before this
is over, and you hear all kinds of sob stories and anguished pleas. ...
People saying their jobs are on the line, their careers are at stake.
You just hear everything.”
